Phew

I didn't get around to writing last night like I'd planned to. I was goofing off...OK, I was procrastinating, and by the time it occurred to me I should be getting down and dirty I was having trouble keeping my eyes opened. So when I rolled out of bed today, I told myself in a very firm tone of voice that I was going to knock out at least 2000 words before I could go out and screw around with my friends.

Instead, I got down a little over 2,500 words before realizing I was seeing double and decided I needed a break. So I'm stepping back from the novel for a little while, and instead looking around at the forums on the site I'm doing all this writing for. My stats for the site say that at the rate I'm going, I'll be done by November 28th. This is a huge improvement from the date of December 5th it had given me before I updated my word count.

I'm still on Chapter Three, which has already become much longer than I'd expected. The chapter is basically a huge Infodump, explaining the basic operation of magic in this novel, and some history. I'll probably end up breaking a lot of it up and sprinkling it throughout the novel in later drafts. But for right now, one thing I've read over and over regarding writing is "Write now, edit later." that's pretty much also the goal of National Novel Writing Month, so for now I'm going to let the ideas flow out, and worry about how well it all works later.My mantra for the rest of this month is will be "This is just a rough draft."

It's often tempting to go back and revise something, or to hover over a sentence and say "What's the best way to phrase this?" But I have to keep in mind that my goal right now is just to get words on paper, I have all the time in the world after November to smooth over awkward sections, to edit, revise, and rework the novel. I've got a long way to go yet.

-E. Maxfield Moen